The Medieval Origins Of Gingerbread

There's a reason why we leave cookies out during Christmas, and, come to find out, there's also an explanation for how we came to enjoy gingerbread treats, an enduring symbol of this time of year. It appears that gingerbread is much older than you might assume ... it's medieval, in fact! All the way back in the year 992, over 1,030 years ago, an Armenian monk named Gregory of Nicopolis moved to France and began instructing French bakers on the ins and outs of making a honey and spice confection. Baked goods using honey and spice date all the way back to the ancient world, when they were buried in tombs to sweeten the afterlife, but Gregory's sweets are the closest thing to a forebear of today's sugary, spicy gingerbread cookies.

Interestingly, British "gingerbread" did not contain ginger for a long time. A medieval recipe calls for a highly-spiced concoction of cloves, saffron, pepper, and cinnamon with breadcrumbs and honey to bind it all together. As the millennium wore on, Europe was making advances in gingerbread. Queen Elizabeth I may have been the first to decorate gingerbread people after noble acquaintances, and, around the same time, German bakers were creating the original gingerbread houses. Of the mistakes people make when building modern gingerbread houses, a lack of imagination is one that can lead to a lackluster display. The Brothers Grimm certainly weren't short on imagination when they wrote "Hansel and Gretel," in which the titular brother and sister encounter a witch's house made of delicious gingerbread.

Elizabethan diners might have appreciated gingerbread for more than just its possibilities as a decorative treat. Ginger ale may be a way to alleviate hangover nausea, and folks in the 16th century figured out that ginger was a great way to promote healthy digestion. They also appreciated the way it sweetened the breath — very important in an age before fluoride toothpaste — and gave folks something to munch on while dinner plates were being cleared away. It was also believed that, if young women ate gingerbread men, or "husbands", it might help lead to their future marriage. Some folks say that, since humanoid gingerbread cookies are shaped like small people, they might represent the baby Jesus, representing one explanation for how gingerbread came to be tied to Christmas. 

Throughout the centuries in some parts of Europe, strict rules created and enforced by gingerbread baking guilds which held that only professionals could bake gingerbread any time during the calendar year. Normal folks were only permitted to break gingerbread during the observances of Christmas and Easter, which strengthened the seasonal associations. Next time you are building a gingerbread cottage with your family or baking these festive cookies around the holidays, spare a thought for the very long, very interesting history of this spiced sweet — and be grateful for all the years and miles it traveled to arrive in your kitchen.